Catalog Contributors
Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, and #1 New York Times bestselling author of 40 books. He is also the Emmy-winning executive producer, showrunner, and writer of The Crossover TV series, based on his Newbery-Medal winning novel of the same name. A regular contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition, Kwame is the creator and host of the Why Fathers Cry podcast. Most recently he was appointed the Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts and Writer-in-Residence at the Chautauqua Institution. His mission is to change the world, one word at a time.
Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of many verse novels, memoirs, and picture books. Awards include a Newbery Honor, Pura Belpré, Golden Kite, Walter, Jane Addams, PEN U.S.A., and NSK Neustadt, among others. Margarita served as the national 2017-2019 Young People’s Poet Laureate. She is a three-time U.S. nominee for the Astrid Lindgren Book Award. Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives on the island.
Kenn Nesbitt served as the Poetry Foundation Young People’s Poet Laureate from 2013 to 2015. His poems have appeared in hundreds of anthologies, magazines, and textbooks worldwide, and were included on the television show Jack Hanna’s Wildlife Adventures and in the film Life As We Know It. In addition to writing books, he has written lyrics for the group Eric Herman and the Invisible Band. His website, Poetry4kids, features poems, lessons, games, and poetry-related activities.
Jack Prelutsky is a creator of inventive poems for children and adults alike and has garnered many awards in his long career including: New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year, School Library Journal Best of the Best Book, International Reading Association/Children’s Book Council Children’s Choice, Library of Congress Book of the Year, Parents Choice Award, American Library Association Notable Children’s Recording, Association for Library Services to Children Notable Book, and Booklist Editor’s Choice. Designated by the Poetry Foundation as the United States’ first Children’s Poet Laureate in 2006, Jack is best known for his humorous and imaginative verse. While Jack has been making words rhyme for many years, his career began as a folk singer in coffee houses with uncertain aspiration of becoming an operatic tenor. Music is deeply entwined with his poetry. Jack has published over seventy books of poetry.
Joyce Sidman is the author of many award-winning children’s poetry books, including the Newbery Honor-winning Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night. Her book The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science won the 2019 Robert F. Sibert Medal. Winner of the 2013 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children, Joyce’s recent book We Are Branches has garnered numerous awards. In her home state of Minnesota, she teaches poetry writing to school children and walks through the woods.
Peter Sís is an internationally acclaimed illustrator, author, and filmmaker. Peter is a seven-time winner of The New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year. Peter’s books, Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei, Tibet through the Red Box, and The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain were all named Caldecott Honor books. Peter Sís is the first children’s book illustrator to win the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. He was chosen to deliver the 2012 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture for the Association for Library Service to Children. Peter won the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Award. This award is considered the most prestigious in international children’s literature.
Arianne True is a queer poet and folk artist based in Tacoma, Washington, and from the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. She currently teaches with Writers in the Schools, mentors with the Seattle Youth Poet Laureate program and Hugo House’s Young Writers Cohort and is a guest lecturer at the University of Washington. Arianne was a 2020 Jack Straw Writer, a 2020-21 Hugo Fellow, and is a proud alum of Hedgebrook and of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Sylvia Vardell is Professor Emerita and author of the textbook, Children’s Literature in Action, as well as Poetry Aloud Here, The Poetry Teacher’s Book of Lists, Poetry People, and the co-editor of many poetry anthologies in collaboration with poet Janet Wong and Pomelo Books. A frequent speaker at conferences, Vardell chaired the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Poetry Award committee, served as a judge for the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and the CYBILS poetry award, and has been a consultant to the Poetry Foundation.
Janet Wong is the winner of 2021 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. Janet is the first Asian American winner and the first awardee who not only writes poetry, but also has created a successful publishing company (Pomelo Books). Her first twenty-one books were published by traditional publishers and had been featured on Oprah and CNN. In 2012, Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong began collaborating to create books that contain engaging poems for children and mini-lessons or useful tidbits for teachers, librarians, and administrators.
Exhibition Curators
Sylvia Tag-Nahas has been exploring the possibilities of youth literature for many years. She is a Librarian and Associate Professor at The Western Libraries where she curates the youth literature collections, in particular Poetry for Children and Teens (PoetryCHaT).
Michael Taylor is Special Collections Librarian and Associate Professor at Western Washington University, where he works to develop the library’s rare book collections and offer related programming and classroom instruction, including an undergraduate survey on the History of the Book. He serves on the board of directors of the Book Club of Washington, a Seattle-based group of bibliophiles which works to promote the appreciation of rare books and special collections in the Pacific Northwest.